Houston will be one of the first cities to get Sprint’s new LTE network

Houston smartphone users are hitting the 4G data network jackpot once again, with Sprint announcing today that we’ll be one of the first four markets to get its new LTE service.

Sprint currently offers a high-speed wireless data network that uses WiMAX, along with more traditional 3G service. But WiMAX can’t compete with the jaw-dropping speeds of LTE, or Long Term Evolution, currently offered in Houston by both Verizon and AT&T.

Sprint lit up its first LTE installation in Kankakee, Ill., last month. Besides Houston, two other Texas cities – Dallas and San Antonio – and Atlanta will get LTE service “before the middle of the year,” according to Sprint’s news release.

Verizon launched LTE service in Houstonin late 2010, while AT&T’s local service went live last September. In both cases, Houston was in the first group of markets to get LTE from those telcos.

In tests, I found both Verizon’s and AT&T’s LTE to offer download speeds much higher than many residential broadband services. Speeds of more than 30 megabits a second are not uncommon, though both networks are new and thus relatively unpopulated. Over time, those speeds may drop some.

Although no LTE smartphones for Sprint were formally announced, The Verge spotted an ad on CNet’s News.com site that declared a version of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus would be its first LTE phone. The ad has since been pulled, but The Verge has screenshots.

3 Responses

I’m so sick of this hype. How about a real unlimited access 4G and speeds like 1 gig like in Asia? We are supposed to be the greatest country in the world but when it comes to the internet we are a joke.

Dwight, I live in West Houston. Sprint & Verizon have the same 4G speed in my neighborhood. However, around the Galleria, Verizon is significantly faster than Sprint. Why would they have the same download speeds in certain neighborhoods? Is there a resource that shows what areas Verizon significantly outperforms Sprint’s 4G? Thanks!